


Branching Out

by indirectkissesiniceland



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen, I don't even know if this counts as stutters but, I won't rest until all of my readers are madly in love with clyde, all of my fics are just, it's also a nice friendship fic ok, my favorite characters being better friends than they are in canon, unapologetically self-indulgent harry potter au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:56:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6927328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indirectkissesiniceland/pseuds/indirectkissesiniceland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite coming from a long line of Gryffindors, Stan has been sorted into Hufflepuff. Being a friendly badger sucks when your whole family tree is made up of courageous lions. Butters is happier about his sorting and takes it upon himself to prove to Stan what makes Hufflepuffs good company to keep—and why Stan does, in fact, belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Branching Out

Stan stared down at the black-and-gold ties and sweaters laid out on the mattress of his four-poster bed. He knew that the second he'd been sorted, the plain black robes he'd purchased in Diagon Alley had been magicked with the Hufflepuff insignia. The little badger looked up at him, mocking him with its kind eyes.

Cartman had thought it was hilarious, of course. That after seven generations of Gryffindor Marshes, Stan had been sorted into Hufflepuff. The anti-Gryffindor. The soft, defenseless little badger House that let everybody in. Not brave like Gryffindors, or clever like Ravenclaws, or even ambitious like Slytherins. What were Hufflepuffs even? The reject house.

"Hufflepuffs are known for their contributions to medicine and a lot of magical inventions that people use every day," Kyle had told him in the Great Hall after the sorting ceremony. "They're like the foundation of our society." Which was easy to say when you were a legacy Gryffindor who actually got sorted into Gryffindor. Stan could tell Kyle was disappointed that his best friend was sorted into Hufflepuff, no matter what he said, if only because now Kyle was left alone with Cartman. Cartman's being more fit to be a lion in the Sorting Hat's evaluation was probably the biggest hunk of salt in Stan's wound.

Now the banquet was over, the first years had followed their prefects to their dormitories, and here Stan was, undeniably a 'Puff. At the four-poster next to his, Butters was chattering away about looking forward to meeting their Housemates and starting classes. Butters' family had been sorted into nearly every house over the generations, but their circle of friends had always known he'd be sorted into Hufflepuff. He didn't even seem to notice how glum Stan was. Butters folded all of his new things carefully and laid them in his dresser drawers, all the while bubbling excitedly about starting off their Hogwarts career.

"Well, gee, Stan, I'm sorry. Here I've been talkin' this whole time." Butters hopped back onto his bed and folded his hands in his lap, his feet swinging back and forth, ruffling his black-and-gold comforter. "I haven't given you even a chance to say anything!"

"That's okay, Butters," Stan said. "I don't mind listening."

He tried to fake a good mood for Butters' sake, but Stan knew immediately that he'd been seen through. Butter's light eyes searched his face, the smile that hadn't dimmed since the Sorting Hat brushed his tuft of blond hair and declared "Hufflepuff!" flickering at last.

Before either of them could say anything, before Butters could ask what was wrong as Stan knew he would, before Stan could intercept him and change the subject, two other students burst into the first years' room. Stan remembered their faces vaguely from the sorting ceremony. "Hi," he said uncertainly.

One boy grinned back at him, brown hair frizzing. "Hi! You guys are my roommates, huh?" He spread his arms. "I'm Clyde Donovan."

Beside him was another boy on crutches. "Jimmy V-Valmer," he added.

Stan and Butters introduced themselves. "Nice to meet you," Butters added, smile restored. "Where are you from?"

"The city," Jimmy said. "My p-p-parents were both G-G-Gryffindors...won't they be surprised!" At his open-mouthed, toothy smile, Stan felt a pang in his chest. Jimmy seemed delighted not only to be a Hufflepuff, but  _not_ to be a Gryffindor. Stan wondered what his parents were like.

"I'm from out in the country," Clyde said. He jumped onto his bed, sending his ties and sweaters flying into crumpled heaps on the floor and messing his bedspread. "Dude, I can't even believe this place!"

"Are your parents Muggles?" Stan guessed, suspecting from the awe in Clyde's voice that he already knew the answer to his own question.

"Well, my mom was a real witch, but not in the magical sense," Clyde said brightly. Laughing at his own joke, and maybe not noticing that Stan and Butters exchanged looks at his use of the past tense, he added, "But, yeah, I'm a first-generation wizard. You guys?"

"I'm from a magical family," Butters said, "but there have been a lot of marriages to Muggles. I have some cousins who are Muggles, too, even though they have a wizard parent. Guess it's not so dominant a gene."

"That would suck, if your family was magic and you weren't," Clyde said. Despite the callous sentiment, his words were spoken lightly, thoughtlessly. Stan stifled a sigh. "How about you, dude?"

"Wizard family," Stan said.

Butters picked up the slack, probably to disguise his friend's shortness. "Stan's family's kind of famous. He's from a real long line of powerful witches and wizards."

"Oh, sure, the M-M-Marshes? My parents told me tons of stories about the Gryffindor Marsh legacy. You're k-k-kuh...kahh...kind of f-famous!"

"Dang, really? That's wicked, man." Clyde's eyebrows shot up to emphasize how impressed he was. Stan felt a spike of pride and tried to cling to it before he reminded himself that he was the first blemish on the Marsh family tree. "So, hey, Muggle-born first-timer..." He pointed to himself, then to Butters. "Magic meets Muggle..." To Jimmy, "All wizard, all the time..." And to Stan, "Wizarding royalty. Dude, what a spectrum!"

"Yeah, well, that's Hufflepuff House," Stan said, unable to keep the bitterness from winding into his voice. Clyde wilted, his pointer finger curling back into a less steady hand.

"So it's true, huh?" he said softly. "I heard some kid in the Great Hall saying Hufflepuff's the leftover house." His bright brown eyes searched Stan's frown. "If a kid from a famous family's disappointed to be here...I guess it's not so great to get sorted here after all."

Guilt bloomed in Stan's chest at the slump of Clyde's shoulders. Before he could open his mouth to apologize, Butters cut him off.

"Well, that isn't true, Clyde! Hufflepuff isn't any lesser than any other House." He shot Stan a reproachful look, and Stan recoiled. Being scolded always stung, but being scolded by  _Butters_ was its own low. "Hufflepuffs are hard workers and the most loyal witches and wizards you could ever meet. We're tougher than we look, an'...an' anyway, being kind and compassionate doesn't make you weak. It's hard to be nice! I think some Houses could stand to be a little nicer!"

Bit by bit, Clyde's smile stretched across his face again. Jimmy nodded along to everything Butters said, eyeing Stan without judgement. Stan crossed his arms, studying his shoes. It  _was_ hard to be nice. Stan certainly hadn't been nice just now. And loyal? He hadn't shown any sort of loyalty to Butters, who was excited about being a Hufflepuff; he'd been too distracted by their other friends being in another House. Boy, had the Sorting Hat ever screwed up on him. 

Stan looked up again and was relieved that Butters was still beaming at Clyde. He could study his friend's face without having Butters' all-too-knowing eyes zeroing in on his soul. Their gang had never given Butters a whole lot of credit, letting him tag along but assuming their friendship would peter out once they were sorted into different Houses. Butters had always been intuitive, though. There was a kind of strength in Butters' positivity that Stan hadn't paid much mind before; when Butters finally glanced back at him, Stan sensed that he'd been forgiven as immediately as he'd been chastised for his earlier rudeness.

"I'm sorry," he said. Butters nodded. To Clyde, Stan added, "My _whole family_ has been Gryffindors. Not just, like, a couple of noteworthy Quidditch players or whatever."

"Your whole family?" Clyde echoed.

"Every one of 'em." Stan's eyes traced the tree trunk spiraling up the wall, spiraling and stretching its branches out like fingers against the stone bricks. "Marsh men are Gryffindors, they marry Gryffindor women, then they have Gryffindor babies."

"Well, see, Stan, your family tree's been a little monochrome, that's all," Butters said. He nodded towards the branches Stan was studiously focusing on. "You're branching out."

Stan didn't mean to laugh, but he couldn't help snorting at the pun. At first he wasn't sure Butters had heard him, though, because Clyde howled over him. "Dude, good one," Clyde praised. He had little gaps between his front teeth that Stan hadn't noticed before his grin stretched impossibly wide.

"Yes, that was excellent p-p-pun work," Jimmy said. "I'm quite a f-f-fah...fan of comedy, you know."

"Say, you know what, fellas?" Butters bumped his shoulder against Stan's. "My mom was a Hufflepuff, and she told me a little secret about our dormitory."

Clyde sat up straight like a dog hearing its name called by a beloved owner. "Secret?"

"What secret?" Stan knew every nook and cranny of the Gryffindor dormitory through storytelling alone, but he didn't know a thing about the Hufflepuff turf. The fact that he'd have stories to tell and new information to share sent a thrill sparking through him.

"We're really close to the kitchens," Butters said. "There's a passageway from the Basement. Sometimes Hufflepuffs sneak over there for midnight snacks."

"Dude." Clyde braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward. "Let's do it."

"Yes, let's," Jimmy agreed.

"Sneak into the kitchen?" It hardly sounded like a daring adventure to Stan, but he'd been so bummed out at the feast that he'd only picked at his dinner. His stomach gurgled. "Butters, do you know the way?"

Butters toyed with a lock of hair and fidgeted. "Well...yeah, I know. But, gee, fellas, maybe we shouldn't be sneaking around on our first night at school—"

"No, let's do it," Stan said, warming to the idea with every passing second. Clyde rubbed his hands together. "C'mon, Butters, we'll stick together, the four of us. At midnight. You lead the way, and we'll back you up."

"Oh...ooh, okay."

There were students in the Basement at midnight, and they looked up when Stan, Butters, Jimmy, and Clyde skulked down from their room. Stan braced himself for the question of where they were going, knowing instinctively that he'd be the spokesperson of the four of them, but all any of the upperclassmen had to say was one who asked, "Grab us some lady fingers, if there are any left." The four exchanged looks, and Butters ran his directions by the upperclassmen to confirm. Giggling, Clyde was the one to tickle the pear in the still life painting, which swung open to reveal the passageway. Then they were off to the kitchens.

It was the weakest adventure of Stan's life.

The whole walk down the hallway, they didn't even need to dart in and out of doorways or hide behind stuff. They didn't pass anyone. The pictures hanging on the walls were totally disinterested in their presence. One former instructor's portrait woke up from a nap asking in alarm who they were, to which another professor's portrait sniffed, "They're just Hufflepuffs sneaking into the kitchens, go back to sleep."

Stan bet Kyle was going to go on the best adventures Hogwarts had to offer. Everybody knew Gryffindor was The House for heroes to be in. Weird shit was always happening to them. Kyle was probably going to be drafted for the Quidditch team, fight a troll, and outwit a dark wizard before the end of their first year alone. This was it for Stan. His big Hufflepuff secret adventure was walking down the hall to eat snacks that all of Hogwarts knew and didn't care he was going to eat.

Butters, Jimmy, and Clyde didn't seem to realize how lame this whole farce of a quest was. They  _were_ darting into doorways like they were being super stealthy, and whispering and giggling to one another. Stan trudged after them until they reached the kitchen, approximately three minutes later. The kitchen door wasn't even locked.

Inside, half a dozen house elves were puttering around. Dirty pots and pans littered the floor. At the far end of the kitchen was a row of sinks where half a dozen house elves were washing dishes, which were piled up in precarious towers around them. One of them noticed the four standing nearby and squeaked.

"Oh...there are still some leftover treats over there," she said, pointing to a cupboard in the corner. "Help yourselves." She went back to sorting through pots and pans. Stan exchanged looks with the others.

"Do you guys need help?" he asked.

Though the house elves insisted they could manage, Stan knew it was out of politeness. The wavering stacks of dishes from the feast that night was taller than three house elves standing on each other's shoulders. He rolled up his sleeves, and Butters, Jimmy, and Clyde followed his lead with smiles. Soon the four of them were hunkered over the sinks with the elves, scraping food into the trash and scrubbing the plates clean. The house elves found a chair for Jimmy, but he worked as quickly as anyone else once he was situated.

Butters hummed some top 40 song from the radio, and Clyde harmonized half a stanza in. After a full stanza, Jimmy was tapping out a beat with one of his crutches against the floor. By the refrain, Stan added his whistling to the mix. Pretty soon they realized that if each of them took a different task, it moved more quickly. Jimmy scraped the plates and handed them over to Stan and Butters to wash, and then they would hand the plates over to Clyde to dry. The house elves were still working like mad, but with the four of them helping, the mountain of dishes grew smaller.

"You know what, Stan?" Butters said. Stan looked up. "I wasn't surprised at all when you were sorted. I know you were and all, and I bet you would've been a great Gryffindor, too, but...you know, I think Hufflepuff suits you. Offerin' to help the house elves like that...I think that was a very—"

"Hufflepuff thing to do?" Stan finished wryly.

"It was a very Stan thing to do," Butters corrected gently.

"They'll write songs in my honor."

"You know, Stan, some folks might be too busy besting dragons and unraveling nefarious schemes to bother with something like washin' a few dishes, but you jumped right in without even being asked. It's a lot of work for these guys. I bet the first feast of the year is one of the foodiest days of all...and you didn't think twice about helping, just because you saw how much these folks had to do. I think a lot of people would agree that's mighty heroic."

Stan felt his ears burning. "Well, washing dishes doesn't make for much of a story."

"I don't think real heroes need people to sing their praises and tell their stories. They do what's right just because." Butters' eyes never left his work, but Stan paused in his scraping to get a better look at his profile.

All these years, he'd kind of brushed Butters off as the tagalong in their group. The soft little runt. The Hufflepuff. But Butters knew who he was and had a sense of self that Stan wasn't anywhere near achieving. Butters had a pillar of strength that came from his kind nature, a zen that it was impossible to imagine Kyle or Cartman possessing. He really didn't need to be praised, though he glowed any time one of them paid him a compliment; and he noticed little details in everyone and everything, knew when a guy was having a bad day and just what to say to help make him feel better. After hours of pouting and looking down his nose at his own House, Stan was well and rightly ashamed of himself. He didn't deserve Butters' praise or assurance that he'd been sorted into a house known for the strength of its compassion. But he was going to. Stan decided then and there that he was going to be the Hufflepuff Butters believed he could be.

When the dishes were finally done, the house elves sent the group back to their dormitory with three plates overflowing with lady fingers. When they arrived in the Hufflepuff Basement, though, it was empty. Stan checked his watch. It was nearly one-thirty.

"That was actually kind of fun," Clyde said, swiping a lady finger from the plates they set down on one of the tables. The other boys did the same. "I know we'll be busy with classes and all, but maybe we should swing by and help them sometimes, too."

"I think that's a t-t-tuh...tuh...terrific idea, Clyde."

"Yeah, I'm in," Stan said. They headed up to the first-year dormitory. "It'll kind of, you know..."

"Be our secret?" Clyde tried to grin but ended up yawning.

"A secret adventure, just for us Hufflepuffs," Butters said.

Once again, Stan felt a little thrill. He didn't know anything about being a Hufflepuff or about the Hufflepuff House. But this was his wizarding education, and ahead of him were adventures and secrets that no Marsh had ever known before. Something different and sacred and his own.

He thought he'd lie awake his first night at school, overcome with excitement, but as soon as he had on his pajamas and fell into bed, Stan's eyelids grew heavy. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep were the branches arching over his bed, a ward of protection and a promise of a good night's sleep.


End file.
